To increase the life of utility assets such as compartmental transformers, periodic and preventative maintenance may be performed. The assessment of the condition and the maintenance of such transformers conventionally occurred by opening either or both of a High Voltage (HV) compartment (i.e., corresponding to a voltage of the primary winding of the compartmental transformer) or a Low Voltage (LV) compartment (i.e., corresponding to a voltage of the secondary winding of the compartmental transformer). In these compartmental transformers, the gauges and other equipment for periodic and preventative maintenance are inside the HV and/or LV compartments.
A problem can arise when equipment inside the LV compartment is energized to voltages that are unsafe without safety equipment or, otherwise, above 480 V ac. At these voltages, in particular, either personnel are required to have safety equipment, such as high voltage rubber gloves, protective clothing, rubber blankets, hot sticks or other barriers, among others, to reduce or prevent injury from accidentally contacting energized portions of the compartmental transformer or the compartmental transformer is de-energized (which reduces the availability of the transformer thereby potentially increasing overall costs) before maintenance operations occur. Moreover, because such gauges and other equipment for periodic and preventative maintenance are located inside the HV or LV compartments, maintenance personnel, even if safety equipment (e.g., HV gloves, hot sticks, rubber blankets or other safety devices, among others) is donned, come into close contact with equipment that is sometimes prone to catastrophic failure. In such cases, the maintenance personnel may be injured due to their proximity to the HV and/or LV compartments.